


Sterling Silver

by charmandhex



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: How did I end up writing a character study on a character I never think about we just don't know, Kind of a character study on Sterling, Mentions of Merle Antonia and Rowan, Minor Character Death, Some discussion of Wonderland not in detail, Someone mentioned something about Sterling and then I woke up at 5 AM and this happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 21:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmandhex/pseuds/charmandhex
Summary: An exploration of how exactly Lord Artemis Sterling, most powerful man in Faerun and 20 year old brat, might have ended up walking into Wonderland.





	Sterling Silver

            Lord Artemis Sterling should, by most estimations, be perfectly happy with his life. He’s the most powerful man in the world, or so his advisors say. He’s cunning, wise beyond his years, determined, handsome, exactly like his father, or so his advisors say. Neverwinter has never been more prosperous, more successful, or so his advisors say.  
            There’s a lot that his advisors say.  
            Lord Artemis Sterling has been as such, lord, that is, for almost eleven years now. To be honest, he doesn’t remember much of the events that led up to it, just his parents dying suddenly and unexpectedly -of course unexpectedly, they’d been so young and in perfect health, it had hit the city like a runaway train- and no one quite being able to explain why, especially not to a nine year old boy. His coronation had been fast; he’d been eager to go back to his games of pretended adventures and practice sword fighting. And the council had been eager for that as well, quickly and gracefully taking on the myriad responsibilities of running a city like Neverwinter, far too much work and far too difficult for someone so young.  
            Or so they say.  
            Sometimes, when it’s all too much, you know, on those difficult days where Lord Artemis Sterling has to sit through this meeting or that, sign a few dozen tax laws that are _of course_ for the benefit of Neverwinter’s citizens, he goes to the statue of his father.  
            It’s silver, naturally, but when he finally tracks down the silversmith who made it, Lord Artemis Sterling is sure to have more than a few words with them. It’s not the likeness; that much is uncanny for sure, a perfect copy of his father. It’s just that... it’s hardly the most flattering statue ever, not even the most flattering statue of his father. Rather than the usual stately pose and airy grace, seeming to look out and survey all of Neverwinter, Lord Argent Sterling’s shoulders are unforgivably hunched over, eyes focused intently, almost obsessively, on something in front of him. His father’s hands are clasped as though he were holding something small, like some kind of gemstone, he thinks.  
            He thinks the statue was commissioned shortly after his parents’ death, around his ascension to power, a kind of gift. A very strange gift.  
            Still, there are times, times when perhaps Lord Artemis Sterling just might remember, just might acknowledge, that even as lord of Neverwinter and the most powerful man in the world, not so long ago he was a small boy called Art with not a care in the world. Though some of that may have been because everyone catered to his every whim.  
            They still do, for the most part, but now they expect things of him as well. Which wouldn’t be so bad, if Lord Artemis Sterling knew what he was doing.  
            But it’s times like this he’ll go to the statue of his father and just talk. It’s one way of finding someone who will actually listen, more so than his advisors it seems, and sometimes he can even pretend that the intent look on his father’s face is for his benefit.  
            It goes without saying that it is only after his father’s death that Lord Artemis Sterling is able to hold his father’s attention, given enough time to learn the face his advisors say he so resembles, have his ear for more than a few moments at a time.  
            Indeed, Lord Artemis Sterling should be happy, and yet oftentimes when he looks on this statue, the ghost of sadness, of pain, drifts faintly through the back of his mind, the cause only half remembered, like a recollection of a dream fading with the dawn.  
            The only other time this becomes apparent is when Lord Artemis Sterling first hears of Miracle Milk. It’s during some sort of boring event in the castle, some kind of mage convention he can’t be fussed to remember the details of, but the important part here, for Lord Artemis Sterling, is the sheer number of magic users with unique arcane knowledge. As he walks, he overhears someone, it doesn’t matter who, mention the phrase. And he stops cold, an inexplicable surge of recognition stopping him in his noble tracks. That’s it. That’s what he needs. That will fix everything.

            He later learns, having not known or perhaps not remembered, that Miracle Milk possesses curative, and somehow more importantly, transmutative properties.  
            He then learns that no one knows where it might be, how it might be obtained, or even definitively if it exists. And no amount of dignified demands for information and slightly less dignified foot stomping will get him the information he needs.  
            He complains to the statue of his father about it extensively.  
            So he continues ruling, signing laws and attending meetings and performing all the boring work he has never grown to care about in the years he’s been ruling.  
            But then comes the day when the package arrives. Or perhaps appears, for no one can say how it arrives or who delivers it or if it just fell from the sky. But there comes a day when Lord Artemis Sterling goes to his desk, stacked high with boring papers and tasks he doesn’t want to do, and finds a small package. After haphazardly and clumsily tearing it open with a knife, a pendant and a letter fall out.  
            He goes for the pendant first. It’s plain, boring, ugly, simple black stone strung with a simple leather cord.  
            He goes to the letter. A flyer, really. And Lord Artemis Sterling’s eyes go wider and wider as he reads. This... Wonderland... claims to have the Miracle Milk he’s seeking. And this pendant, this ugly thing, will lead him straight there. He puts on the pendant. Immediately, a light shines forth, directing him toward his prize.  
            His advisors try to dissuade him at first. The council can’t verify this flyer or anything about Wonderland. But that’s to be expected, the flyer told him so, told him that only the most deserving and the best of them receive an invitation. Then there are other questions. What does he personally need to go for? He’s the lord of Neverwinter after all. Go with an army, or just stay and send a battalion after the stuff. But that’s no good either: Wonderland promises that if an army comes, in the hustle and bustle of a fight, the bottle might just break.

            Seems a little mean to someone so deserving and good, but perhaps it’s fair.   
            His advisors still protest, but for once in his short life, Lord Artemis Sterling stands firm. It’s for the good of Neverwinter, he promises, though a voice inside whispers the truth that, even more so, it’s for his own good. So he takes up the weapons he’s neglected for years, hires two bodyguards whose names and faces he can’t be bothered to learn. They have no problem passing through the Felicity Wilds and no concerns about entering this mysterious Wonderland, and that is the important part.  
            Lord Artemis Sterling leaves Wonderland 17 years older, the same age as his father when he died. And, though he does not know it yet, on the path to be a considerably better man than not only who he was when Lord Artemis Sterling walked into that tent, but better than his father had been.  
            When he, Antonia, and Rowan return, it’s to gasps of horror, of awe. “L-lord Argent?” The question is little more than breath but easily audible, echoing in the silent room of advisors, and it’s then that Lord Artemis Sterling realizes that he does, in fact, look like his father.  
            He gets the best clerics available (for the one who is perhaps the best has disappeared with a wizard, a mannequin, and a mysterious red-robed figure) to attend to Antonia and Rowan. He brushes off their offers of aging reversal potions and spells almost absentmindedly. He already knows that which is lost in Wonderland cannot be returned.  
            Lord Artemis Sterling does spare a moment to study his father’s statue, noting the now readily apparent resemblance between them and wonders, bitterness creeping in, if the monsters had ever had the Miracle Milk to begin with.  
            Well. He’s changed. Now it’s time for Neverwinter to change. He calls the council.  
            And then the apocalypse happens. And Lord Artemis Sterling watches invisible enemies begin their assault on Neverwinter, _sincerely_ hating the day he is having and attempting to plan even as his advisors shriek in the background about hiding and evacuating.  
            And then there is the Story. And Lord Artemis Sterling remembers a year of brutal war and magical catastrophe. He remembers his father, holding the Philosopher’s Stone, irrevocably set on a shining silver city. His father, holding the Stone, silver spreading, killing his mother, killing others. The silver had stopped spreading after his father had been transformed.  
            The Philosopher’s Stone had disappeared afterward in the confusion and destruction left its wake. Leaving the silver to be removed, a statue of a king, and a spoiled brat and lonely orphan thrust into a position of power.  
            It had only become worse when they’d forgotten. Even if he’d never forgotten the need to find something capable of reversing some of the most powerful transmutation the world has ever seen.  
            It scarcely becomes better when they remember, when they understand, as they look out toward destruction more powerful, more absolute than a Grand Relic had ever been.  
            And then there is the Song.  
            And then the world fights back, Lord Artemis Sterling among them.  
            After all, he has a people to protect. After all, he’s lord of Neverwinter.  
            Afterward, as he’s rebuilding (or just building, in the case of one particular beachside bar), Lord Artemis Sterling dissolves the council. They’d been working toward the greater good, or so they say. He needs them to make things work, or so they say.  
            Lord Artemis Sterling no longer cares what they say. It’s time to make some changes around here.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!
> 
> Yeah... this is probably the oddest fic I've ever written. But now that it's done I can finally refocus on chapter 10. Probably.
> 
> Considering I expect this to get exactly 12 whole hits, if you for some reason enjoyed the insistent rambling of my sleepy brain, I will love you forever if you leave kudos and comments.
> 
> For me complaining about writing or little snippets of things I deem too short for ao3/works in progress, see [charmandhex](https://charmandhex.tumblr.com).


End file.
